Thankfully, this prison drama doesn't overstay its welcome.

| Mar 26, 2025

The film surprises and engages us in unexpected ways, changing our perceptions of characters and the situation again and again, yet always in an emotionally prevailing way.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 18, 2023

This is a (predictably) violent and dark entry into the prison drama genre, but I agree with the snarling and cruel Malamadre...

| Dec 9, 2021

Director/co-writer Daniel Monzon does danger, and violence, with an almost delicate hand -- relying on tense realism and visceral fear rather than gratuitous gore.

| Original Score: A- | Sep 23, 2020

Daniel Monzón's Cell 211 is a brutal reminder of how to make a well-made thriller.

| Sep 23, 2020

With an edgy shooting style that plays up the claustrophobia of the prison as social microcosm, and two fine central performances - particularly that of Luis Tosar as hard-guy and riot ringleader Malamadre - there's plenty to enjoy beyond the story.

| Sep 23, 2020

In addition to its effectiveness as a thriller, it is also a film showing a man in the agonizing process of changing his values. And it is a critique of a cruel penal system.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 23, 2020

It is packed with Tarantino-style violence... but the plotting is so fine and the suspense so blinding and the character strokes so masterful I was totally gripped.

| Aug 31, 2018

Spanish prison movie Cell 211 is a winner if you're a fan of the nail-biting real-time thriller, using deception, undercover work and con artistry to deliver violence and heart-pounding scenes.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 24, 2018

A Spanish prison thriller so terrifically stressful it just might compress your brain into a diamond.

| Aug 29, 2017

... visceral and intelligent, with layers of political complexities (both national and internal) and personal complications, and a touchy buddy story at the center.

| Mar 24, 2016

A satisfyingly intense and suitably incendiary prison drama that keeps the viewer tightly handcuffed during its first hour before falling victim to the fraud of improbability.

| Feb 23, 2012

By the last half-hour, the story's seething skepticism towards the surveillance-state and its portrait of a nave guard turned murderous prisoner make for a mesmerizing movie.

| Feb 9, 2012

Cell 211 is both gritty and gripping, and if the second half is not quite as electrifying as the first, much is forgiven because the story is so clever.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 28, 2011

From Spanish director Daniel Monzon, this is a white-hot prison drama with a Byzantine plot and enough gore to make Reservoir Dogs look like a petting zoo.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 28, 2011

It's a cut above the usual penal picture, intelligent with sharply drawn, memorable characters, a storyline suffused with tension and unexpected turns, and a morass of moral quandaries that could lead the most innocent into irretrievable darkness.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 28, 2011

Monzn demonstrates a remarkable capacity for blending high concepts with high-minded ideas in a direct, no-nonsense way.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 18, 2011

First-time director Monzn keeps the screws tightened in every sense, as well as avoiding conventional rhetoric and sentimentality.

| Jul 17, 2011

There's a riot going on in a Spanish maximum security prison, whose Darwinian savagery is right up there with A Prophet.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 15, 2011

Cell 211 is a brutal piece of filmmaking ... but the shock and gore is warranted ...

| Jul 15, 2011